Mistakes
by TehGlompingKitsune45
Summary: Ah, the innocence of youth and the awkward situations that ensue. Sort of TamlenxMahariel


"Hey, Elkis," the young elf looked to Tamlen when he was called.

"What is it, Tamlen?" he asked, noticing that the other wasn't looking at him, he followed his line of sight and found that it lead to the halla keeper's daughter.

"What do you think of Thaiados?" Elkis blinked, tilting his head in slight confusion.

Finally, he shrugged, replying "I've never even talked to her before," Tamlen nodded and laughed a little.

"Neither have I, actually, but. . . don't you think she's. . . really pretty?" he sighed almost dreamily and Elkis couldn't help but blush. The slightly younger boy rubbed the back of his neck, almost afraid to reply; if he said yes Tamlen might think he liked her too, if he said no Tamlen might get angry at him for implying that the girl was unattractive.

He stuck to shrugging his shoulders, trying to make himself look smaller by curling in on himself. But Tamlen didn't seem to mind, he merely laughed and ruffled his friend's hair. "Sorry, I'm being weird," he waved his hand dismissively, "Let's just go see if the hunters are back yet" Elkis nodded, relieved to have dropped the strange subject, and though he was horribly afraid of the hunters when they returned covered in blood with animals slung over their shoulders he followed after Tamlen without hesitance.

-

A week later Tamlen brought up Thaiados again; they were practicing archery and Ilen had set the lesson at a standstill to help one of the younger girls string her bow. Thaiados was standing a few targets down, her lips jutted out in a pout with glazed boredom in her eyes. "What do you suppose she's thinking about?" he whispered to Elkis, his friend jumping a bit at the unexpected noise.

"Wha-who?" he fiddled with his bow nervously, following Tamlen's gaze to the white-haired girl again. "Are you talking about Thaiados?" Tamlen nodded, making an uneasy feeling well up inside of Elkis once more. It was cut short, however, Ilen had managed to get the girl to string her bow properly and returned to give the command for them to string their arrows.

Even after the lesson had ended Tamlen couldn't help but comment that, after Elkis and himself, Thaiados was one of the best archers of their age group.

-

Finally, though Elkis had been dreading it, Tamlen disclosed to him that he had a crush on Thaiados; Elkis had tried to act surprised, he really had, but he had never been a convincing liar. Tamlen had turned red in embarrassment and urgently asked if he was obvious enough to tip off Thaiados to his feelings, but Elkis reassured him that he had only known because they were so close.

His friend cleared his throat, a light dust of pink still present on his cheeks "But besides that, I was thinking of. . . talking to her, ya' know?" Elkis shook his head; he really didn't know. Thaiados didn't seem to talk with anyone but her parents, the elder clan members, and the halla. The other children had tried to make friends with her, but she was so soft in both appearance and personality that she often faded into the background of any games until eventually people stopped noticing she had even been there.

The only one that did seem to notice her was Tamlen, and perhaps this was for no other reason than that (if one really did take the time to look at her) she was rather beautiful in a delicately graceful way. But Tamlen ignored all of this "I'll try it tomorrow. . . even if she doesn't like me too I can always try and get her to be friends with us, right?" Elkis nodded and smiled encouragingly, repeating the word 'tomorrow' before patting the slightly older boy on his back.

Tomorrow came quickly and as soon as Tamlen managed to rouse himself from bed he got dressed in his best clothes and darted outside to pick the flowers he had seen growing on the outskirts of the camp a few days before. The plants were a beautiful shade of purple; soft and lightly speckled with blue Tamlen could only hope that Thaiados liked them-girls were supposed to like flowers, right? His mother always had, at least.

Thaiados was already up, sitting on the wooden gate of the halla pen, watching the animals eat their breakfast of lush, dew-covered grass. Tamlen gulped, thinking to himself that she looked even prettier than usual with the sunlight shining on her like it was. He carefully approached her, shifting nervously when she turned and looked at him curiously with those icy blue eyes.

"Aneth ara," he greeted, clearing his throat and trying to hide the flowers he had picked. She nodded, a small smile tilting the corners of her lips up in a way that made Tamlen reconsider this entire thing, especially when she hopped off of the gate to stand in front of him. But he braced himself and carefully held out the flowers he'd picked to her "I. . . I picked these for you" his face turned red.

At this Thaiados seemed a little startled and furrowed her brow, carefully taking the flowers; in perfect silence she ran her fingers over the delicate petals. Tamlen held his breath when he saw her mouth open to speak "Um. . . I'm a boy" his jaw dropped.

In his humiliation he ran, his face was positively scarlet as he darted off and out of the camp entirely. Thaiados stared after the other boy, letting out an exasperated sigh before shaking his head and letting the beautiful flowers slip from his hand onto the ground. He saw his mother approaching from their aravel and considered cutting his hair short like his father's.


End file.
